Take a Chance on Me - Chapter 5

Jonas and Teal'c joined Major Carter who was sitting on the steps of Colonel O'Neill's house.

"Hey, Sam!" Jonas called. "What's going on?"

"Hey, Jonas, Teal'c. The colonel isn't here. I've been waiting around hoping that he would show, but he hasn't yet. It isn't like him to be late. He did say six, didn't he?"

"He did indeed," Intoned Teal'c. "However, it is just 6:00 now. Perhaps he was delayed."

"Actually, he's probably with Rayne," suggested Jonas.

Teal'c and Sam stared at him puzzled. Teal'c raised an eyebrow and asked. "How can Colonel O'Neill be with a weather phenomenon?"

Jonas smiled, with an slightly smug expression on his face - pleased that he was not the only one to associate the colonel's, um, relative, with precipitation. "No, Teal'c, not a weather phenomenon, a girl - named Rayne. It's spelled differently. She's his - cousin - or something. I haven't quite figured it out."

Sam looked taken aback. "The colonel has a relative in town? He didn't mention anything about that. We have a weeklong mission scheduled in two days. Surely, he would try to rearrange our schedule to accommodate visiting relatives. The planet seems to be uninhabited; it could easily have been re-scheduled."

Jonas sat down on the stoop and leaned back, enjoying the late-summer sun. "Actually, she moved here. And, well, the colonel didn't exactly know about her arrival."

Jack stood outside of Room 411. It had taken him nearly two hours and some of his special ops skills to track down Rayne. He only hoped that if this wasn't the right room, he could make it back to his house before she did.

He impatiently thrummed his fingers against his leg as he shifted from foot to foot. Finally, the door opened and a flood of undergrads flowed out the doors like water flooding from a burst dam. After the last of them fled the room, Jack nervously peeked around the corner. Something in that room had scared them.

Looking in, he found Rayne packing up some papers at the front desk. She looked very different from when he had seen her earlier. She was no longer in her jeans and sneakers, but instead had on a suit and had her hair pulled back in a bun.

Jack made a low whistle. "Boy you *are* old."

Rayne looked up to see Jack leaning against the doorjamb. Smiling, she picked up her portfolio case and backpack and walked over to where Jack stood waiting. "Some of the Teaching Assistants wear jeans to class. They think it helps them to relate to the undergrads. I tried it once and ended up with chaos. No one took me seriously. I've no idea how they manage to pull it off." She turned to lock the door behind her. "Most of these kids have no idea that I'm a T.A. and not their professor. They don't even dream of screwing off in class. I'm too damn mean. Besides, looking older has its advantages - but I'm sure you know all about that." She poked Jack in the side and walked off, leaving Jack with the burning realization that this girl had indeed inherited the O'Neill wit.

"What are you doing here anyway? I thought I was supposed to meet you at your house."

"Just a little reconnaissance."

Rayne smiled. "Must've been a trip tracking me down. I've been in three different buildings, each nearly a mile apart. Bet it took at least half an hour to find me."

"Nah. No problem at all."

"Right."

Jack looked sheepish at Rayne's smug expression. "How long did you know I was looking for you?"

"I wondered if it was you that I spotted when I was crossing the quad just before my last class. Next time, just check with my advisor. He has my teaching schedule posted on his office door. By the way, where's the space cowboy?"

Startled by the phrasing of the question, Jack looked at her. "Who?" They started to walk to the exit.

"Jonas, you know, brown hair, likes to air out his teeth, looks like he should be on a show on FOX? Ring any bells? And really - Deep Space Radar Telemetry? Come on Jack; we're in the mountains." She gestured to the panorama just barely visible from the quad. "You can't even get good television reception out here." They continued walking to the parking lot where Jack's truck was parked.

"Hey! We have very advanced - doodads and thingamabobs. We get great reception."

"And of course you're on this project because of your brilliant technical mind."

"What is this, pick on the-closest-relative-you've-never-met day?

Rayne bit her lip, knowing she was coming on too strong. She hadn't meant to get Jack's back up. She just had so much to talk to him about - and she knew him better than he realized. Sarcasm was her way of dealing with uncomfortable situations. "I'm sorry, Jack. Really. Was there something that you wanted to see me about; something that we couldn't talk about at dinner?"

Jack looked awkward. He was glad that he'd been able to divert her from her questions about the SGC, but chastising her wasn't what he had wanted to do. "Yeah, dinner, hmm. Well, actually I forgot that my team was coming over for dinner tonight. I just didn't want to spring you on a situation that you didn't feel comfortable with." He paused and frowned. "Speaking of which, I didn't call them to tell them I would be late. I better do that."

Jack pulled his phone out of his pocket and speed-dialed Sam's phone. "Hey, Carter, obviously I'm late. (pause) Oh, Jonas told you. Swell. Well, go ahead and use your key to let yourselves in. The security code is the same as the GDO. (pause) What? Well, if it's good enough for the United States Air Force. (pause) Oh, I have an extra one. Tell Murray to look on the top shelf in the hall closet; it should fit. (pause) Go ahead and order. I'll pick it up on the way back."

Jack hung up the phone. "I hope you like Chinese."

"I'm a student, Jack. Anything that takes more than six minutes in a microwave is gourmet cooking. Oh, and thanks for the concern, but meeting new people and being diplomatic is what I'm here to do. Speaking of which, what can you tell me about them. I'd rather not go in totally blind."

"Well, we work in four-person units."

"Four-person, very PC of you Jack."

Jack ignored her and continued. "My second is Major *Samantha* Carter. She's a theoretical astrophysicist." Jack looked smug. Having someone with a technical background did lend credibility to his cover story. And it made him appear to be more intelligent by proxy. "Then there's Murray. He's a civilian advisor. And of course, you met Jonas, also a civilian."

"He mentioned that he was a scientist. Of course, at the time, I thought that he might be somewhat delusional. Not many people start conversations with strangers in coffee shops. At least not around here."

"You just hold on to that delusional persona for a while longer. We haven't quite broken him in yet."

"Okay. I'll wait until he's officially FDA approved before I talk to him without adult supervision then." They had reached the truck and Jack pushed the button on the key chain to unlock the doors before walking to the driver's seat.

Rayne reached for the door and crawled into the back seat. Jack looked annoyed. "Rayne, I realize that you are used to being driven around, but I am not you chauffer."

"For your information, I haven't been chauffeured around in years. I just want to change out of my 'scary-professor clothes' and put my jeans back on and I want to do it without an audience." Rayne answered snappily. "I'll move when we pick up the food." She continued a bit more lightly. She bounced up and down on the seat a bit. "You know, it's not bad back here. I had always thought back seats in a truck would be terribly uncomfortable."

"I wouldn't know. I've never been back there." Jack answered dryly as he started to back out of the parking spot.

"Well you're missing out. A family of four could have dinner back here. Hey maybe you could install a fireplace." She continued as she slipped her sweatshirt over her head. "Why do you need such a huge vehicle anyway?"

Jack ignored her question. "You know, I could stop at a gas station or something if you want. You don't have to undress in my backseat."

"And waste all this space? Please. I was wearing a tank top under my suit jacket and pulling pants on under a skirt is really no big deal." She said as she proceeded to do as she described. "There. All I need now are my socks and shoes."

"We're leaving campus now. Would you please sit down and put on your seatbelt?"

Rayne did as she was asked. "Okay, okay. It's on now." She slipped her shoes and socks on and began to neatly fold her discarded clothes after which she began tugging at the bun in her hair.

Jack looked at her in the rearview mirror. "Oh for crying out loud. Now what are you doing." Rayne was starting to plait her hair into two braids.

"Just as there are advantages to looking older, there are also advantages to looking younger. I'm choosing to employ that advantage now. Besides, it keeps the hair out of my face."

"You could just cut it."

"I tried that when I was an undergrad. I looked like a shi-tzu. The blue streaks were fun though." Rayne wore a grin at the recollection. She smiled even wider when she caught Jacks quirked eyebrows in the mirror.

They pulled into the parking lot of a plaza. Jack turned to Rayne. "Would you mind coming in? I could use some help with the packages."

Rayne reached for the door handle and swung it open. She carefully maneuvered around the front seat and climbed out. Jack locked the truck and joined her on the sidewalk before opening the door to let her in the restaurant. The pungent aroma of spices hit them as they entered. They walked to the counter to pick up their order.

"Um, Jack. How much food did you get? I mean there is only going to be the five of us, right? Why do you need me to help?"

"You've obviously never seen Jonas eat. Between him and Murray, we've had to increase the budget of the base cafeteria twice since they came on board. They blamed it on increased produce prices, but we all know the real reason."

The O'Neill's reached the counter. Without even asking for his name, the clerk began assembling the packages. By the time the bill was paid, Jack was carrying two large paper bags, Rayne had a third and the clerk was waving happily. They stacked the bags in the back seat and climbed in. "Now I understand why you need such a large vehicle."

Jonas and Sam lounged in the colonel's living room while Teal'c sat in the room with them. Teal'c did not lounge. Ever.

Sam was trying to pump more information from Jonas. She'd gotten a physical description, but not much else.

"Okay, okay. So you think she's beautiful. Hitting on any of your CO's relatives is not generally a good idea, by the way. What else can you tell me? How are they related?"

"I really don't know, Sam, and I've told you everything that happened. At first, I thought that maybe she was his daughter, but I really don't think that's the case. She is a fairly close relative though. They made too big of a deal about seeing one another to *not* be closely related. Either that or there's a seriously bad feud in their family. Apparently, he referred to Rayne's mother as 'an old bag.' Not to her face of course, but that's what Rayne said. It doesn't sound like a term of endearment to me."

Sam was pensive. "What makes you so sure that she isn't the colonel's daughter? How old is she? If she's a student, she's probably not that old."

"She's a doctoral student and she's 26. And, the colonel would have been 23 when she was born. BUT, he hadn't met her before today. He doesn't seem like the kind of person who would run out on his child."

"No, you're right about that, but that doesn't mean that her mother couldn't have left him and taken Rayne with her. You said that Rayne has a foreign accent? If her mother had taken her and left the country, there isn't much he could have done about it, especially since he's military. Mothers almost always won custody battles 26 years ago and active members of the military aren't even allowed to jointly adopt children, let alone take full custody of one; even one's own. Dealing with international courts could have tied things up even more.

"I suppose that you're right. But there's no way to figure it out now. If we don't find out from the colonel tonight, we'll have to do research tomorrow - see if we can track down anything on this mysterious Rayne."

**Author's notes: Sorry for the long wait. RL caught up with me, and I'm still not entirely happy with this chapter. I've also begun to, with some great suggestions from a seasoned professional (Thanks D), go over the other chapters. Any suggestions on how to make this seem a little less wooden would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!